Chipotle adobo bridges butter chicken depth and mole smoke — cook the adobo down so the vinegar sharpness rounds into smoke. Cashew paste does cream's job and pulls the mole almond thread.

For flank steak: hard sear, slice thin against the grain, ladle sauce over — never braise it or it goes mushy. Treat it like salsa verde on carne asada: meat does its thing, sauce serves it.

San Marzano in sauce is a gift — concentrated, sweeter. Mint at the end cuts the smoke.

You've got three keepers in this one riff — a full sauce recipe, the flank-sear method (reusable on any fatty-acidic sauce), and the batch-freeze trick. Hit capture and route each where it belongs.